While Mr. Howell always called her "Lovey", the other castaways always called her "Mrs. Howell". There are only two times someone besides Thurston calls her Lovey: in the pilot, when the radio is announcing the missing people, the announcer says "Thurston Howell III and his wife, international hostess Lovey Howell"; and in the episode in which Gilligan thinks he wins the lottery and invites all the people into the Howells' club, The Professor greets Mr. and Mrs. Howell as Thurston and Lovey. In episode 31 of season 2, "Mr. and Mrs. ???", in which the Howells were having marital problems, she mentioned her maiden name was Wentworth. If "Lovey" is a nickname, her actual first name was never mentioned in the series itself or its unaired pilot episode. Trivia buffs are always getting annoyed when the writer of the show Sherwood Schwartz would throw out information on interview shows that was never mentioned in the series. Two prime examples were that Gilligan's first name being Willie and Mrs. Howell's first name being Eunice. Bob Denver, himself found that out during a Tonight Show interview almost twenty years later. Not much information was revealed about her life before being marooned with her fellow castaways, but she introduced herself in episode 6 of season 2 as "Mrs. Thurston Howell III, from New York, Palm Beach and of course, Paris, mon cher". She also mentions in episode 17 of season 2: "You've Been Disconnected" that she spoke fluent French and Italian, hinting at a classical education. In episode 9 of season 3, Mr. Howell mentions her having studied at Vassar, saying "Mommy warned me about you Vassar girls and your long gym classes". During episode 4 of season 2: "Smile, You're on Mars Camera" Thurston Howell indicates that Lovey, or at least her family, had money of their own; Mr. Howell describes her as being an heiress who is "loaded". It is also revealed that Mrs. Howell's father gave them an oil company in "Dustbowl, Oklahoma" as a wedding gift, which she claims he thought was a football stadium. Two members of her family Mr. Howell cannot stand are her mother and her brother. Mrs. Howell claims she was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution , to have been presented at the Court of St. James, and to have been selected the "Queen of the Prune-Bowl Parade". A favorite movie star of hers is silent movie star Mary Pickford Although spoiled and preoccupied with social status, Mrs. Howell was also kind and genuinely cared about the well-being of her fellow castaways. She frequently served as something of a mother figure to the two younger female castaways, Ginger Grant and Mary Ann Summers, offering advice. One of the Island "visitors" she can't stand is socialite Erika-Tiffany Smith because her name appears before the Howells in the "Social Register". She also claims to be close friends with "Grace and Prince Rainier" on several episodes. Several times she acted as a motherly figure to Gilligan, such as psychoanalyzing him, adopting him, and praising him for his accomplishments when no one else did. She plotted with her husband several times to steal/access/manipulate things from the other survivors. She once tried to get Gilligan and Mary Ann to wed, kept a gold mine secret from the rest of the group, divulged secrets about stolen jewelry from a parrot, schemed to convince a burnt-out artist to leave the island, and got through to an uncivilized jungle boy played by Kurt Russell. Although she gives the impression of being physically frail, in one episode she actually resorts to physical manual labor in order to extract gold from a mine; in another , under the influence of Mad Dr. Balinkoff's ring, she actually executes a judo flip on her husband! She adores dogs but is allergic to cats. It was once quoted by Thurston Howell himself that their brilliance together was exceeded only by their greed. They had also proven to have a house in each state and several staffs of servants, including an upstairs maid, a downstairs maid and a butler who served him breakfast in bed. Thurston once quoted that the neighborhood of one million dollars apiece was considered a slum area where they resided. Although the Howells were portrayed as childless in the original series, their son Thurston Howell IV was introduced in the reunion movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island.
